Last night was the Year 7 House Drama and the children were just amazing! The Angles won the coveted Best House prize with ‘Every Pantomine That Ever There Was (in under 15 minutes)’ with some hilarious performances showing great comedic timing. All four houses were brilliant and it was an extremely tough job for our Old Belmontian judges and current A level Drama students, Louis and Shayna, to pick a winner. The Saxons started proceedings with ‘A History of Messy Bedrooms’ with some wonderful performances, followed by a terrific display of different accents by the Jutes in their play ‘Language Lessons’. The Danes’ ‘A Bad Case of Loving EU’ was a powerful and intelligent tribute to the NHS, with serious messages interspersed with moments of comic genius.

The children all came across so confidently and genuinely looked like they were having a great time. Observing the social interactions and confidence levels onstage alone you would never know that a good number of the Year 7 pupils had only joined the school in September. Thank you to all the teachers for all their hard work in preparing the children for this magnificent event.

More Remembrance Reflections and Musical Belmontians

In assembly on Monday Mr Symes launched Anti-Bullying Week with the theme of showing respect. A number of activities have been organised for the children throughout the week by Miss Elliot our PSHE Coordinator.

After a while I asked the children if they could name the composer. We had a few guesses of Mozart, Tchaikovsky and Beethoven. The composition was in fact composed by our talented Mr Warren and was played by the Chorleywood Orchestra at a memorial concert on Saturday evening, along with other pieces in the theme of remembrance. To give ‘Prayer for Peace’ even more poignancy the music was accompanied by pupils reading out the poem ‘The Bell’ by Ralph Waldo Emerson.

On the theme of Remembrance we are very proud of Mr Perrin’s involvement with the Tower of London ‘Beyond the Deepening Shadow’ commemoration ceremony on a very wet Saturday.

I’d also like to share a picture that a current parent and member of the Old Millhillians Rugby Club sent me last week to show the impact that the Great War had on so many young lives in our community.

This powerful image, which hangs in the OM rugby clubhouse in Harrow, describes the fate of the 1914 OM rugby players and really drives home the devastating losses. The contrast of the picture, symbolising youth and fun, with the text below makes the picture even more heart-breaking.

We ended our assembly by playing some more music by a Belmontian who has been working hard since the age of 6 on his musical skills. An outstanding drummer, Ruhan has also created many of his own original compositions as well as remixes using music technology. The Upper School children really enjoyed listening to his latest track. If you would like to listen to Ruhan’s work (stage name RUMOR) then click on the link. soundcloud.com/ruhan_music

Sophia Dunkley gets her England Cap

Earlier this week Old Belmontian received her England Cap and played against Bangladesh in the Women’s T20 Cricket World Cup. We wish her well and hope she has an opportunity to shine against South Africa this evening.